Mount Errigal Hotel

My sister and I stayed at the Mount Errigal Hotel on the outskirts of Letterkenny, Co. Donegal for 5 days. We'd never been to Ireland before. It was a bit of a surprise to realise how bad the public transport is and we wish we'd been able to hire a car now. It takes a long time to get anywhere in Ireland and you really need to drive.
We flew from Glasgow to Belfast and got an airport transfer coach to Derry and another bus again on to Letterkenny. I actually got travel sick because of the winding roads and the speed the coach was belting along at and I haven't been travel sick since I was a kid.
We soon realised that we weren't going to get around as many places as we thought we could. The local buses in County Donegal were slow and infrequent. Letterkenny is the biggest town in the county and it had a few good pubs and restaurants and shops. In fact there were a fair few trendy establishments in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere on first inspection.
It turned out that there was a retail park with all the usual clothes shops the other side of town too. We ended up walking a lot mainly because we realised our hotel was best placed for people touring by car or business people. It was on a busy main road into Letterkenny and although it was opposite the tourist information there was nothing else about (and no pavements).
Our hotel was a 4* and very well equipped with a basement swimming pool, sauna and steam room, and a lovely big bar and brassarie, but in retrospect we should have stayed right in the heart of Letterkenny.
It was a 15-20 minute walk into Letterkenny every day and we got fed up when it was pouring with rain the whole time. It is very wet in that part of Ireland and most of our photos are of us in our cagoules being battered by the wind and rain. That said if we'd have had a car we'd have been fine and it was still a really good laugh despite the weather.
The hotel was great and Letterkenny was a cool place but the two should have been closer!
Oh yes and the bus timetables were a nightmare to decipher, especially as Northern Ireland and Ireland have two different bus operators. I'd definitely go back but I'd definitely drive.
The food we had out and about was all really good but Ireland is quite expensive and we spent more than we realised.